The Indian Parliament has finally passed the Plant Variety Protection and Farmers Rights Act, 2001. With this has ended a long and arduous struggle waged for the recognition of the rights of farmers in India's sui generis legislation. India has put in place a law to grant Plant Breeders Rights on new varieties of seeds, for the very first time. It has simultaneously provided a Farmers Right. This legislation was necessitated by the commitments that India made in the agreement on Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) when it ratified the Uruguay GATT Round in 1994. Article 27. 3(b) of TRIPS which deals with the protection of new plant varieties offers three options. Protection will have to be granted by a patent, an effective sui generis system or by a combination of the two. The sui generis system refers to the grant of Plant Breeders Rights, of what kind is not defined, except to say that it should be "effective". India ultimately opted for the sui generis option but not without a determined struggle by civil society to stop seed patents.

The government of the day was greatly inclined to accept patents and a large scale propaganda exercise was launched describing the patenting of seeds as the great good fortune of farmers and the harbinger of prosperity for rural India. It was an aggressive and sustained campaign on the part of the NGO community that forced the government to change its stand and opt for a sui generis system instead. Gene Campaign has been in the forefront of this campaign from the start, even having initiated it. It was a decisive event in March 1993 which contributed a great deal to compelling the government to abandon its pro-patent stand.

This event was a farmers rally organised by Gene Campaign together with three farmer organisations, the All India Bhartiya Kissan Union, the Bhartiya Kissan Union of Punjab and the Karnataka Rajya Ryatha Sangha. This farmers rally, led by the imposing figure of Mahendra Singh Tikait was held behind the Red Fort on March 3. It issued a single call: No Patents on Seeds. The government realised the issue had reached the people and it would be suicidal to enforce the bitterly opposed patent option.

Once the sui generis path was decided, came the question of what kind of legislation we would give ourselves which would accord Plant Breeders Rights in India for the first time.

Gene Campaign's position right from the start has been that if the status quo has to be changed and we have to grant Plant Breeders Rights, our legislation will have to grant a strong Farmers Rights at the same time. To recalcitrant and unwilling governments, we pointed out over and over again, that there was nothing in TRIPS or Article 27.3(b) that came in the way of granting Farmers Rights. And that even if there were to be any restriction on the granting of Farmers Rights, it would be impossible for India to accept such a restraint.

Gene Campaign's demand has been for a Farmers Right that would allow the farming community to retain the same control over seed production and use that they have always had. As against the widely articulated demand that Farmers Rights should constitute the right to save seed from the harvest to sow the next crop (plant back rights), Gene Campaign's position has been different. We have maintained that plant back rights were no rights, only exemptions. Such exemptions, sometimes referred to as Farmers' Privilege, were allowed by Breeders in the early years of UPOV and were limited to plant back rights in varying degrees. In some UPOV member countries, France for example, limited exemptions was granted to farmers, in others like Greece, these were more generous. Exemptions for farmers were retained till the 1978 version of UPOV. They have been considerably diluted since. After the last amendment in 1991, exemptions for farmers are no longer a matter of course. They have been made optional and are subject to the consent of the Breeder.

Gene Campaign has insisted that the Indian law has to grant well defined rights, not just provide beggarly exemptions, to its farmers. These rights have to be recognised because of the past and present contributions made by the farming community to the conservation of agro-biodiversity and their role as dynamic breeders of new varieties which anchor the food security of the world.

In addition to this, as part of Farmers Rights, we wanted payment for the use of farmer varieties and their informed consent. We also wanted compensation for the farmer if  poor quality spurious seeds led to crop failure. To make certain the farmer does not get displaced by fancy new companies as a seed producer, the key element was to ensure that the farmer retained the right to sell seed to other farmers, even if the variety was under a Breeders Right. This right to sell seed was crucial to maintaining the livelihood basis of the farming community and the nation's self-reliance in agriculture. This clause, the right to sell seed, was the most fiercely resisted and was till now the major bone of contention.

Sadly, the strongest opposition to Farmers Rights has come from within our own government. Senior scientists of the ICAR system and bureaucrats of the Agriculture Ministry have been the principal opponents of the farmers' right to sell seed, drafting time and countless time again, as governments changed, that the farmer had the right to save, sow, exchange - but not sell seed. It took the intervention of a Parliamentary committee and strong NGOs to get past their blockade and get a reasonable Farmers Rights in place.